Fenty wins D.C. Republican primary

[Meeker]

I suspected this would happen. No one was running on the Republican side so there was just a write-in option. Unsurprisingly the top vote getters were the high-profile candidates from the other side, and considering the demographic make-up of the Republican Party it should be no surprise that Fenty got more write-in votes than Gray.

Fenty has until the end of the day to accept the nomination. I'd be shocked if he chose to.

[Meeker]

This is actually a good argument for a California/Washington style system for mayoral elections in cities where the Democratic primary is all that matters. It sucks for statewide elections but it is more representative and democratic in one-party municipalities. Minneapolis basically used such a system before switching to IRV. Fenty probably would've won a basically non-partisan open to all voters runoff.

Would be better to just make elections non-partisan with a top-two run-off.

Then we'd have a more difficult time figuring out who the Republicans are. Better to keep party names on the ballot.

[Meeker]

I was on the D.C. Board of Elections website today (there's a special election going on that the Republican may actually win; more on that if it happens). I noticed something interesting: there was an Adrian Fenty write-in effort for the general election mounted by some local activists that ended up getting about 22% of the vote. Write-ins even won several precincts in Ward 3.

[Meeker]

For those curious, the Republican did not win. He was endorsed by the Washington Post and the Democratic field was fractured by six candidates, but he still came up short 22% to 20%.